“An extremely reliable source has confirmed to us that Google is in the process of building stand-alone retail stores in the U.S. and hopes to have the first flagship Google Stores open for the holidays in major metropolitan areas,” Seth Weintraub reports for 9to5MGoogle.

“The mission of the stores is to get new Google Nexus, Chrome, and especially upcoming products into the hands of prospective customers,” Weintraub reports. “Google competitors Apple and Microsoft both have retail outlets where customers can try before they buy. ”

Weintraub reports, “Google currently has Chrome Store-within-a-store models in hundreds of Best Buys in the U.S. and 50 PCWorld/Dixon’s in the U.K.”

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101 Comments

This seems like pretty clear evidence that Google is about to unleash its own branded phones designed by their flagging Moyorola subsidiary. Samsung will then bolt for its’ own OS. But since Samsung is inept at software and Google is inept at hardware, retail and tech support, this is gonna’ be fun to watch.

Just as Apple does not build its phones here in North America but rather in Asia, there’s no reason why Samsung could not employ some of the best minds in North America and lots of them to build a totally successful operating system and apps. They just announced something that amounts to very very much just that. Don’t Make the mistake of under estimating Samsung. I myself reach for Apple, but Samsung has made a decent showing and Is a formidable competitor.

I see Google using every means at its disposal to topple Apple, even if it means departing from its comfort zone of being primarily a software development and web services company.

I see Apple still stumbling in services with a crippled iCloud that still has no Dropbox-like file management system and which remains restricted at 5GB when it would cost them next to nothing to expand that to 20GB with expanded services and functionality.

Ultimately Apple’s inherent stinginess against spending in the intangibles to create future needs and wants will be it Archilles heel.

google may have gotten up to par with fluidly in its os, I’m switching people are immature and talk shit about someone else’s opinions and preferences lol like they’re paid spokesman for apple….i’ve had a iPhone for 5 years but to me they’re starting to fall behind

I’m not sure about your comments with google, but it does amaze me that apple is not giving iCloud more features. I think it was a big mistake to strip down MobileMe to create iCloud. It could have been a simple resources decision and apple all along would bring back the lost features…..but maybe not. Maybe iWeb was not a big success, but apple paid so little attention to it. So much cash in the bank and apple seems to have this attitude that everything must make a ton of money.
I know it’s old hat, but since when did BMW cars stop making high end cars because only a handful of people bought them?

BLN has a point. Apple’s social and cloud implementations have not yet met Apple’s standard of excellence. Good efforts, no doubt, but not up to par. And Apple has also failed to appropriately allocate resources in other areas, as well, including iWork, iLife, and Mac Pro computers, to name a few.

Apple is gradually learning how to spread its growing resources to evolve multiple product lines in parallel while simultaneously pursing cutting edge R&D. Not everything that Apple touches glitters like gold, but I am a reasonably patient person and will stick with Apple as long as Apple maintains the corporate focus on:

The battleground for hearts and minds is shifting to the web and intangibles. All people are seeing is Apple’s absence in this area and continual stumbles in implementing web services as an ancillary to hardware.

Ya think? 99.9% of people I know couldn’t give a flying fuck about the cloud, ancilliary web services, or any of that other stuff. You’re a typical tech nerd who imagines that the rest of humanity thinks like you do. Newsflash time: they couldn’t give a shit. Get used to it.

If Apple is serious about gaining share in the corporate market, they are going to have to make file management a priority because you want to get work done on your iPhone and iPad and don’t want to view it as a consumer toy any more.

Adding file management in a Dropbox-like secure environment with enough GB to satisfy the corporate market can only enable its push into the enterprise. You don’t want to think one dimensional when pushing cloud services.

I respect the way you handled that, BLN. And as for the points you are making about enterprise, Apple apparently has no road map and is playing it by ear; it does look like they are distracted from that theater by the boatloads of cash coming to port from far-flung consumer markets. Tim Cook’s Peter Pan-like homilies about great user experience, best products on the planet, love my job, etc. are starting to wear thin and the money crowd never bought it to begin with. These are real worries to professionals who expect solid support from platform vendors.

Yours is the one comment that I value most highly on this forum. And a couple of others of course who shall remain nameless but they know who they are.

They and you remain the most rational commentators on this forum. And you’ll note that I usually only respond to them as well because I can have a conversation without being barracked from all sides. I don’t mind the barracking, it’s the holier than thou know it all attitude that I can’t stand.

But really there are a number of very decent people here on this forum and I take my hat off to all of them. Thank you hannahjs for your kind comment.

And if I may answer the question you raised with respect to Apple and/or Tim Cook’s attitude towards corporate customers.

I think it’s a shame that Apple doesn’t do more to mine its corporate customers. Many people I know are fighting tooth and nail to bring their iPhones and iPads into a corporate environment, but they are not helped by a lingering perception by corporate IT that Apple makes toys and not serious corporate tools.

I don’t know whether that is due to Steve Jobs’ longstanding disdain for the corporate market. However, I think that came about due to the refusal of corporate IT to accept the Mac into its fold, choosing instead to support Windows. This time round, Apple has built up an enormous groundswell of support for corporate deployment by its loyal customers who start off as consumers but who insist on bringing their iOS devices to the office.

The unfortunate thing here I feel is Apple is letting this goodwill wither on the vine because of its obsessive secrecy. I don’t mean that they should announce a roadmap for iPhone releases, but at least they should do more to promote the Mac Pro and/or OS X Server within a corporate environment. They have $137 billion sitting in the bank burning a hole in their pocket. Setting up a corporate service department would be a snap of the fingers for Tim Cook.

There is this problem with iOS 6.1 devices not talking properly with MS Exchange Server, a situation that has persisted since December of last year. I think the dilatory response that Apple is making in this area shows its lack of focus when it comes to addressing corporate needs.

For the record, I agree with you that iCloud does not cut it for the collaborative workplace, be it either corporate or educational. Consider the ‘i’ in iCloud to be short for “individual” Hopefully Apple can grow that to fCloud (family) where several iTunes accounts roll up into one, and wCloud (workgroups) where documents (non-purchased things) can be easily shared.

And who knows: Tim Cook came from Compaq, so there’s a greater chance he “gets” enterprises idiosyncrasies than Steve was willing to.

Why would Apple be serious about gaining share in the corporate market? How’s all that market share working for Dell? The only reason Microsoft still makes money in enterprise is their ridiculous licensing and product stratification. Consumers aren’t locked into Microsoft by legacy applications, procedures, and systems. Many companies use Microsoft applications because they have designed procedures around Office and can’t think of, or don’t want to go to the time and expense of doing it differently, even if it would be more efficient.

SJ was always leery of becoming dependent on enterprise. Enterprise demands thin margins and generic features. They’re not interested in new functionality. They want to dictate features and they require backward compatibility. To cater to enterprise is to let your customers dictate your designs and pricing. SJ never cared to get involved in all of that. I don’t think anything has changed.

Who said anything about “catering” to enterprise? Apple has a wedge in enterprise now through no effort of their own, with the BYOD programs in more and more firms. Apple is studying this, and may produce a few cards to play down the line. The cards will be jokers, wild in some versions of poker. Expect surprise.

To many firms, going mobile means seriously considering Apple in procurement decisions. IT departments will adapt—they’ll still have power, but no longer of the draconian variety. They still get to tell people what to do, but they can retire the rack and the thumbscrews.

Obviously the Apple option is not about their replacing Microsoft, Oracle, Dell, or IBM by manufacturing low-cost servers and deploying massive support services but in providing the very best client solutions in terms of their iOS/hardware combo with better security, reliability, and joy than the other guys.

SJ is dead. He’s not running the company anymore. It’s a new day. It’s time to move on. Quit living in the past. This is the present. It’s not 2012 or 2010 or 2008 etc. Things change. If you don’t change you’ll be left behind, like RIMM. There’s a new sheriff in town and his name is Tim.

What you meant to say was: I don’t know the facts but I think that web services are not important to many people. I am envious of your technical ability and don’t comprehend most of it myself. I have to go to the bathroom now.

If tech nerds do care about this ancilliary web stuff and the average users look to tech nerds for advice, more voices will be urging the average user toward the tech nerds’ favorite companies. If only .1% will use these services, Apple would be buying some nerdy good will at a low cost.

Thank god they don’t have a good desktop OS. As far as they could get with Android, they’ll always be crippled by not having a very refined desktop OS like OSX or (ugh) Windows that ties all their devices together.

There is no “win” or “lose” in an expanding market like mobile, just profits. Apple has plenty. Google really doesn’t, but they’re hoping they’ll eventually come. Let’s see how they fare competing against their own Android customers with their Nexus product line. Nothing will drive Samsung away faster than Google’s duplicity. The rest of us should just make popcorn and enjoy the show.

Win or lose in mobile equates to winning or losing customers and subscribers. If you lose too many customers or are not gaining new ones fast enough, you lose the network effect of mass & volume. This is important from the standpoint of attracting developers to develop new apps for your ecosystem.

Also if you fall below a certain mass of customers, you enter into a death spiral from which you may never recover. So maintaining market share is important, if for that alone.

Slight disagreement here. I’m an iOS app developer, and what’s far more important to me than iOS market share is the two sided coin of development effort and return on investment. I keep my eyes open, but until it’s important for my brand to be available on Android as well as iOS I am not seeing the effort worth the return.

I don’t disagree with you that the basic premise of app development is first and foremost ROI. I think every app developer looks at that before everything else. And right now, the platform that pays the most to developers is iOS which paid out $8 billion to developers in the last quarter. I don’t have the figure for Android to hand but I would hazard a guess that it would not amount to more than $1 billion, if that.

Therefore, the returns a developer can expect from the App Store outstrip the returns he can expect from the Play Store. However, mass and volume dictate how consumers perceive a brand. If a brand is seen to be weak or looks like a falling star, then people will desert that brand for other brands.

I just don’t want the OS X vs Windows debacle to recur in the mobile wars and I think a balance between market share and profitability is an important criterion to look at.

Do you know why Google’s share price is worth $300 more than Apple’s? Do you think it’s because of Apple’s lack of profits? Hardly. Apart from its search engine, Google continues to branch out in all sorts of services. Google is using aggressive tactics just like Amazon is. Branching out like an octopus. Not just standing pat. Wall Street sees this as an attractive quality and so do investors. Google is on the rise, up another $5. Apple is on the wane, down another $6. The gap is getting bigger by the day.

As an Apple shareholder, I have to watch these weaker companies taking bigger nibbles out of Apple when Apple should easily be able to put a stop to it. Although Apple continues to make profits, perceptions of weakness and Apple’s pacifistic attitude are ruining Apple’s share value. I honestly feel that with Apple’s cash, it shouldn’t be taking just a defensive posture. Apple should be dealing death blows.

Up 100 points in the last 30 days. And that ain’t hay! I have made some good money during this time in GOOG. I won’t use Google search. And I think they’re sneaky bastards. But just like Willy Sutton when asked why do you rob banks? “Because that’s where the money is”. And that’s where it is. I used some of my money from selling Apple at $700 last September. Has worked out nicely. It’s just not the time to be in AAPL right now. But don’t give up. It’s coming. Never invest with your heart. Take the emotion out of investing. Never fall in love with a company’s stock. It’s your money. It’s what matters. Keep your eyes on the road and your hands up on the wheel.